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Updated: Jan 14, 2026
High-frequency Ultrasound Imaging of Mouse Cervical Lymph Nodes
Published on: July 25, 2015
Ultrasound-guided fine-needle cytology for cervical lymph nodes: a tertiary centre's experience with the Sydney
Xiaoyi Yan1, Yanping Ding2, Yang Gui1
1Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
Purpose:
To evaluate the diagnostic value of ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration cytology (US-FNAC) and ultrasound-guided fine-needle non-aspiration cytology (US-FNNAC) on cervical lymphadenopathies, in which the authors specifically analysed the influence of lymph node size.
Materials And Methods:
A total of 500 lymphadenopathies were retrospectively enrolled from January 2019 to July 2023. The lymph nodes were divided into four size groups: ≤5.0 mm, from 5.1 to 10.0 mm, from 10.1 to 15.0 mm and >15.0 mm. The cytohistologic diagnosis was evaluated based on the Sydney System: I. inadequate/nondiagnostic; II. benign; III. atypical cells with uncertain significance/atypical lymphoid cells with undetermined significance; IV. Suspicious and V. malignant. The diagnostic yield of US-FNAC and US-FNNAC were assessed based on sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy calculations.
Results:
The overall SEN, SPE, PPV, NPV and accuracy of ultrasound-guided fine-needle cytology were 88.7%, 89.7%, 96.2%, 72.9%, 88.9%, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy and SEN of US-FNAC were superior to that of US-FNNAC in the overall cases (95.1% vs 83.9%, p < 0.001;95.6% vs 83.4%, p < 0.001) and in lymph nodes that measured from 5.1 to 10.0 mm(94.5% vs 85.1%, p = 0.022; 95.8% vs 84.4%, p = 0.021) as well as that from 10.1 to 15.0 mm (98.6% vs 86.0%, p = 0.011; 98.2% vs 83.3%, p = 0.011), while there was no significant difference between US-FNAC and US-FNNAC in the diagnostic yield among the other two subgroups.
Conclusions:
The current findings supported the preferential use of US-FNAC over US-FNNAC in routine clinical practice for lymph node evaluation, particularly for nodes measuring 5.1-15.0 mm. For lymphadenopathies ≤5.0 mm, additional tests were required to enhance the diagnostic performance of US-FNC, with US-FNAC often being necessary. Thus, we recommended using US-FNAC to obtain cytological specimens for definitive diagnosis of cervical lymphadenopathies that ≤15.0 mm.
